The Social Network Review

The film we saw in the first Film Criticism and Review class was “The Social Network.”  Jesse Eisenberg leads the ensemble cast as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.  Andrew Garfield,  Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer and Rooney Mara make up the supporting cast.  The film starts out on the college campus of Harvard where Mark Zuckerberg lived and created Facebook in the fall of 2003 and follows him in the areas in which he made his business.  It’s a drama that has hints of comedy too here and there, often uncomfortably treading the line between the two.

The movie starts out with Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend breaking up with him which takes him by surprise.  It causes him to drunkenly blog about her and hurtfully insult her in all kinds of shallow ways.  In this state he also creates a website that compares the attractiveness of girls at Harvard with each other.  It proves to be the precursor to Facebook which he later creates with his best friend Eduardo Saverin.  He steals the idea for the creation of Facebook, which is called The Facebook in its early stages, from two twin brothers that approach him about creating a Harvard social-networking site together.  The rest of the film is about the creation of the site and Mark’s falling-outs and friendship betrayals that benefit his own self-gain.

Mark is cold and calculating throughout as evidenced by how he secretly schemes behind people’s backs and belittles them.  You have to pay close attention to the film or you won’t catch everything that’s happening and you might miss details that become more important later on.  For instance, Mark is quietly angry that Eduardo has better luck being accepted socially, specifically into a clique in college, so Mark passively belittles what Eduardo is doing.  He also intentionally leaves him in the dark about important happens on the Facebook front.  It’s primary this relationship that gives the movie a real rational, human grounding.  Sean Parker, whom is introduced to the viewer as an internet piracy maverick, is also extremely important.  He is the devil on Mark’s shoulder when Eduardo is basically the angel.  He is ruthless, rich, powerful and extremely influential to Mark because Mark knows that he could be Sean.  Sean is a scary character because he is out to prove himself to the world, just like Mark, and he doesn’t care who gets in his way and he truly is unstoppable.  The real Sean Parker in a way really did take down the music industry.  His slogan that he gives to Mark in the film captures him perfectly, “I’m CEO, bitch.”

Jesse Eisenberg’s acting style here is great because he is angry, nerdy and always to the point.  He really makes Mark sadly believable.  Justin Timberlake is also impressive as Sean Parker in a similar way, except his character has a smarmy charm that Mark purposely lacks.  That right there makes Mark harder to hate than Sean.  Although out of the whole cast I think Andrew Garfield gives the standout performance as Eduardo.  He genuinely likes Mark and is impressed by his computer-savvy skills, but he gets more and more troubled as Mark becomes distant and deeper involved with Sean as a partner.  At a certain point it’s almost as if he can see the writing on the wall and gives Mark a bit of a scare in order to fight back a little.  Eventually Eduardo is betrayed.  When this happens Mark finally shows a little emotion which is appropriate and painful at the same time.  Eduardo was his last connection to humanity and that’s where the movie leaves us.  It’s fitting that Mark is alone at his computer on Facebook at the end.  It brings everything full circle and shows just how ironic the concept of social-networking really is. 

My only real problem with The Social Network was that it wasn’t longer.  I guess wanting more isn’t so much a complaint as a backwards compliment really.  I give it 5 out of 5.  Well, maybe more like a 4.5 out of 5.  What can I say; even more character development could’ve worked for me.